Most underrated and most overrated developers

[desura]

I wasn't that impressed with Elizabeth's scripting. Partly because Elizabeth is immortal and cannot be harmed. I found Alex more impressive in Half LIfe 2. In fact, I probably found HL2 more impressive overall.

Irrational...is overrated. Sure, there's a story, but the actual game is very similar to COD: a series of scripted arena battles. And the story itself: interesting, but with some heavy-handedness to it, and ultimately it's all an excuse to kill everything that moves.

Underrated would be the developer of Zeno Clash. Which has scripted arena battles, but creates gameplay mechanics that make them so interesting.

 

[Aikouka]

I think AI scripting is a fascinating subject. I did a research paper on it in college and dug through a lot of scripts in CryEngine2 in the process (all of their AI scripts are available to view....nice!).

AI is an interesting beast, and as a software engineer, it's one of my favorite subjects to muse over. I remember this one article that I was reading where they essentially said, "How do you make a computer-controlled entity 'properly stupid' when it knows everything?" There are obvious things you can do like work in line of sight and such, but what about aiming? If you deem that an enemy can see the player, how do you determine how it misses? How about how enemies work together? That's something that I don't see terribly often in games, which is disappointing when you're playing a shooter with tactical enemies. The enemy shouts, "Hey, I found him!", and they all run at you. :|

EDIT:

I wasn't that impressed with Elizabeth's scripting. Partly because Elizabeth is immortal and cannot be harmed. I found Alex more impressive in Half LIfe 2. In fact, I probably found HL2 more impressive overall.

Unless they implemented some sort of command cover system, I wouldn't want Elizabeth to be able to take fire. Nothing is more frustrating than having an escort mission (and this would be nearly all game long!) where the tag-a-long is as dumb as a bag of hammers. Also, the command cover system would work well because even if she was smart, it may not be able to understand what you're planning, so the game could end up leaving her open.

 

[BigDH01]

Overrated:
Will Wright

"I'd say that's quite accurate," Wright told me. "We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. "Spore" has more depth than, let's say, "The Sims" did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for "Sims 2", which was around 90, and something like "Half-Life", which was 97, and we decided -- quite a while back -- that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of "Sims 2" than the Metacritic and sales of "Half-Life."

Wright's excuse for trying to make all his games just shallow copies of The Sims.

Underrated: Stardock

 

[Arg Clin]

Bethesda isnt overrated.
They may not makes games you like, but they have a small line of quality titles which is a hell of a lot better than EA and Ubi.

As others have mentioned, the narrative element in Bethesda games is rather weak. Furthermore I find it inferiour to that of titles from studios like Bioware, CDProjektRED or Square Enix. But they are frequently (mis)placed in the same league which in my book is an overrating.

I fully respect the fact that Bethesda are good ar crafting open worlds. But others can make just as beutiful landscapes as Bethesda - even if they chose to make less of it to make room in the budget for narrative content. Betheda fails where it gets complicated; creating quality interactive narrative content. (making a lot of landscape to form an open world environment vs. the creative proces of crafting an interesting story and the complexity in keeping track of hundreds or thousands of threads and making them all come togehter as a meaningful story in the end)

 

[mizzou]

bohemia and their work with ARMA. It doesnt perform well and the character movement has remained clunky in form ever since operation flashpoint.

 

[shortylickens]

You cant have a truly open, free world with a super strong narrative.

Books are linear and provide a set path. So do movies, television series, and songs.

Video games provide a half-way flexibility between real life and a set experience like cinema. Strict linear path games like Final Fantasy 2 provide a strong story but thats mostly because you cant make any real choices in how the game progresses.

Baldurs Gate is the next step up from that and Elder Scrolls is one step more.
You get freedom but without a strict line to the end you cannot have a crapload of meaningful story elements.

Next step from that is real life, which lets you do whatever you want except theres no reload feature and consequences are permanent.

You need to decide WHAT you want. Dont blame the gaming community for giving you tons of options you are unable to choose from.

 

[you2]

The problem with irrational is the release rate is so bloody slow
-
I did think bioshock infinity was well done but kind of short and a bit of dislike for the ending. Actually I like the developers of arx fatalias (dishonored more recently); though they also are a bit slow. I generally agree that eldar scroll games are over-rated. My biggest complaint is that your actions or choices have no impact on the evolving world (though one could argue mass effect 3 ending was similar - but at least it was a shorter scope of no effect )

 

[you2]

Not sure I agree; waiting to see what witcher-3 brings to the table.

You cant have a truly open, free world with a super strong narrative.

Books are linear and provide a set path. So do movies, television series, and songs.

Video games provide a half-way flexibility between real life and a set experience like cinema. Strict linear path games like Final Fantasy 2 provide a strong story but thats mostly because you cant make any real choices in how the game progresses.

Baldurs Gate is the next step up from that and Elder Scrolls is one step more.
You get freedom but without a strict line to the end you cannot have a crapload of meaningful story elements.

Next step from that is real life, which lets you do whatever you want except theres no reload feature and consequences are permanent.

You need to decide WHAT you want. Dont blame the gaming community for giving you tons of options you are unable to choose from.